This is Golden Gopher Basketball

Tag Archives: Trevor Mbakwe

It’s not like we didn’t know things would be different when Richard Pitino came to town. Heralded as a guy who likes his teams to run, who has takes a fairly sophisticated approach to the game and prefers guys who can shoot well, it was understood that this year’s Gophers would be a departure from the elements of Tubby Ball that we’d gotten accustomed to. Less interior play, harassing defense and improved fundamentals were expected. And so far, at least, that’s been the case. Of…

Okay, so I usually do a season-ending recap soon after the final game of the season when the misery/optimism/exhaling is extremely fresh. It provides the best foundation to really review the season, scrutinize what went wrong, praise what went right and dream of the following year when everything will be better … or something. This year, though, those plans were derailed as our lovable, huggable, mustachioed Tubby Smith was ousted the DAY AFTER the season ended. The ink hadn’t even dried from writing Florida into…

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A truly rewarding journey isn’t easy. There are wrong turns, detours, and delays. The college basketball season is 30 games long, and the Golden Gophers got lost along the way, and more than once looked like they wanted to give up and go home. Instead, they’ll be playing to go to the teams first Sweet 16 (that counts) since 1989. In basketball as in life, without negatives there can be no positives.

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Maybe it isn’t where we thought we’d be after topping out at 8th in nation. Maybe it wasn’t where we thought we’d be in Tubby Smith’s sixth season at the helm. While it was another disappointing season in Gopher Land the important thing to remember now is that none of that matters; at least for the next couple of weeks. It’s a new season and the Gophers have the opportunity to make the most out of the situation they’ve been dealt. In fact, their situation…

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Fresh off a thrilling, court-storm-inducing victory over Indiana, the Gophers kept up the intensity and cemented their status as a tournament team with a 29-point drubbing of Penn State. On a day where Tubby started all seniors on Senior Day, Minnesota dismantled the Nittany Lions in all aspects of the game. With a significant size, strength, and athletic advantage, the Gophers led wire to wire and were never really challenged. Rodney Williams also had perhaps the greatest dunk of the season. At the outset it…

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All good things must come to an end, and hopefully on Saturday, that includes the home careers of Trevor Mbakwe, Rodney Williams, Julian Welch, and Andre Ingram. We don’t want to see them go. Rodney Williams soaring through air and Trevor Mbakwe’s chest pounding dunks will be sorely missed. But if we do see them play another game in venerable Williams Arena, it means something has gone horribly wrong over the final three games of the Big Ten season. Thanks to the thrilling, potentially season saving win over the best team in the country on Tuesday night, the Gophers need only one more win to make the NCAA tournament. The three remaining games are against three of the worst teams in the Big Ten, starting with Penn State.

Once the season winds down we’ll take a closer at the careers of the departing seniors. They deserve so much more than a short blurb on a random blog in the middle of a game preview. But until then, thank you, sincerely, for your two to seven and a half (or s0) years with the basketball program. You will be missed.

What can you really say when your team knocks off the #1 team in the nation unexpectedly? It’s one of the greatest feelings a college basketball fan can experience. It’s pure euphoria. My words can’t do this victory justice, so I’m just going to let this one steep and have the below video do the talking: Just a few quick notes and thoughts: Thanks to this win the season is basically un-screw-upable. By that I mean the Gophers can lose the rest of their games…

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If you are interested in a more formal preview of Sunday’s game between the Golden Gophers and the Iowa Hawkeyes, you should read our preview from two weeks ago. The information is still valid, and rehashing it all would be boring. So instead, here are a few thoughts. I’ve often discussed the life, death, and possible new life of the Gopher-Hawkeye basketball rivalry. Sunday’s game should be the most meaningful game in the rivalry since 2005. Iowa basketball was dreadful when the Gophers made consecutive…

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In what was perhaps the biggest game of the season in terms of postseason implications, the Gophers fought tooth and nail against Wisconsin to notch an overtime victory that went down to the final seconds. After a solid start to the season, the Gophers ended a free fall that saw them fall out of the national top 10 to unranked oblivion where they found themselves in a familiar position: needing a win to show the country that they’re still relevant. A loss to Wisconsin meant…